Far Cry: Instincts

Greg Gobbi looks at once both terminally exhausted and youthfully energetic. He rubs his face as he reads the results of the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences' Interactive Achievement Awards, where last night, Ubisoft's Prince of Persia scooped an impressive eight gongs, including Console Game of the Year. Gobbi is a happy man today. As studio boss for Ubisoft Montreal, he green-lit the Prince and felt the heat last year when initial sales fell short of expectations. They've been climbing steadily since, and as of February, they had breached the two million mark. Sighs of relief all around.

"We knew it was very much a risky project," Gobbi recalls. "We feared what we call 'the Ico nightmare,' where we'd make a fantastic game that wouldn't sell. But we tried to be as innovative as we couldas we wanted to bewithin the action-adventure genre, because that's really our roots."

Innovation and creativity seem to be in the water at Ubisoft these days. A revitalized Prince of Persia made the 3D-platform genre look justifiably prehistoric, and most recently, Pandora Tomorrow's superb take on multiplayer added another dimension to an already perfectly rounded game. And to the delight of this magazine and countless Special Ops fans eager to relive their favorite movie moments from The Rock, the French Canadians also took the high road with their Xbox version of Rainbow Six 3; it was created from scratch with Xbox in mind.

"Yes, that game was loosely based on Rainbow Six 3 for PC," Gobbi explains. "To be unique on the console, you have to have this attitude. You have to say, 'OK, this is an Xbox game, how can I make it successful?'"

Gobbi hopes to work the same magic with Far Cry, a franchise in the making that the company picked up in 2002 from German code shop Crytek. The PC version, published by Ubisoft, is already climbing the sales charts. For the uninitiated, Far Cry PC is set on a tropical island in Micronesia (it's in the middle of the Pacific). Ex-Special Forces dude Jack Carver is pit against overwhelming odds as he strives to save Valerie (a damsel-in-distress journalist) from the clutches of an army of tooled-up mercenaries, a mad scientist, screwed-up mutants, and the very evil merc leader, Crowe. It is widely regarded as the best-looking PC game to date, thanks to its lush island locales and breathtaking detail.

The Xbox version, known as Far Cry Instincts, is being developed in-house at Ubisoft, just down the hall from where the next Splinter Cell and Prince of Persia 2 are being produced. Which, as it turns out, is rather useful.

SuperfriendsIf you liked Sam Fisher, then you might be interested to know that Martin Caya, the guy who designed Fisher, is now designing Far Cry Instincts' characters. Christian Duval is also fresh from Splinter Cell, where he worked on the atmospheric-lighting effects. If you liked the level designs of the original Tony Hawk, you'll be equally pleased to meet Jeff Hattem. He designed them, and he's now the lead designer on this project. And if you thought the Prince was pretty cool, leaping around those Persian palaces, you're going to like the way Instincts moves. The lead animators, like Francois Royer, are the same.

In the end, it took producer Roxane Gosselin three months to put the Xbox project's core team together, but once it was assembled, the ideas began to flow.

First, Jack Carver got a makeover. He lost the Hawaiian shirt, the Special Ops background, and about 30 pounds. The new lean Xbox version of the game's hero is now more Han Solo than Sam Fisher. As with everything this team does, there's a point to making him a bit less handy.

"He's charismatiche's not a supersoldier," Caya emphasizes. "He's not always in control of the situation. The story brings him to these islands that he's not familiar with, and he falls victim to a series of events that will change him throughout the game. He's vulnerable."

Don't push meThat vulnerability is going to be important, and it leads to the second departure from the PC original. The game is now structured around a central concept that Gosselin describes as "hunter and hunted," which adds a significant new gameplay twist. Carver begins the game with a simple goal: survival (that's the hunted bit). But before long, something happens to him, and he begins using the enemies' weapons against them. He becomes the hunter.

Caya, Carver's creator, who's also pulling duty as a game designer, explains: "We start with Carver, and you're going to be hunted. You are going to be the prey. Then we add something really cool: traps. You have to avoid them, and you're also trapped inside the jungle. In the CryEngine, the physics engine is really phenomenal. We make sure Carver is able to take objects, throw objects, which allows for a lot more interaction with the environment. You can take a table and kick it or [take] a chair and throw it on a merc, or [you can] take the body of a merc and throw that. So you have a lot of gameplay options. The first part [has you being] hunted by the mercs. You are going to try to survive, but you don't know what's happening or why you're here."

The traps may present innumerable headaches for Far Cry's lead programmer (Nightmare Creatures' Frederick Condolo), but once Carver is able to begin using them against the mercs, suddenly, it's not just FPS business as usual. The game was already highly strategic, and the team hopes this will take it to a whole new level.

"You gain a stalking mentality," Hattem says, obviously relishing the thought. "You want to bait people into these traps and get the thrill of 'All right! I nailed him!' That's all part of being an agent of change in the environment."

When you can change the environment, you change the encounters. A well-deserved criticism of the FPS genre is that it can become repetitive, which is something the team seems, fortunately, more than mindful of.

Yippee Ki-Yay"Have you seen 28 Days Later?" Hattem asks. "The movie starts when the main character wakes up in a hospital, which puts you right in the setting. It's like the movie wakes up at the same time the character wakes up."

Don't panicHattem knows that games and movies are different animals, but he also recognizes the importance of the emotional journey, whether as a passive audience member or a fully engaged gamer. Likewise, both Caya and Gosselin constantly reference movies as they explain Instincts' feel. Die Hard (Carver is now wearing a vest...), Predator (buff army dudes in the tropics...), and First Blood (bandanna, anyone?) come up often in conversation. They do a good job of illustrating the emotional side of the hunter/hunted theme, since they all begin with a lone character who is seemingly powerless against ridiculous odds, but they all end with the tables turned. And much ass kicking.

"The focus is not on creating a nonlinear game. The focus is on creating the best experience so you feel like you're the one who's controlling the situation," Hattem says. "It's an emotional journey. Everything has to be playable. There are no cinematicsthey are all playable. It's all about immersion."

That's great, but can you punch the sharks?"No, and you can't ride them, either," Hattem says with a laugh. Same with the vicious, genetically modified Komodo dragons that roam the jungle (yesthat's another departure from its PC cousin). But with four seamlessly integrated islands to explore, more than 15 stages, and enough new ideas to make this version of Far Cry stand out from other shooters, there must be some limitations. If Gosselin's team has its way, the FPS genre won't be one of them. Instincts debuts sometime this holiday season, and Xbox Nation will bring you the first review